World

PARIS — France's far-left CGT labour union sought to broaden resistance to hard-hitting economic reforms on Thursday, urging employees across the public sector to join striking railway workers in their showdown with President Emmanuel Macron.

There was no clear evidence that anything of the kind was about to happen, however, even as rolling stoppages by rail workers halted train services for the eighth day this month.

The CGT's goal is a "convergence des luttes" or "convergence of struggles" — a storm of public discontent where protests of different origins fuse into one widespread upheaval against government, something like in May 1968 or more recently at the end of 1995.

But a CGT strike call at the Paris subway train and bus group RATP appeared to have little impact: RATP management reported normal service across most of the grid.

More moderate unions involved with the CGT in the industrial action at the state-owned SNCF railway group also kept their distance from the Communist-rooted CGT as it asked others to join the protest action by striking or taking part in street marches.

"This is a political operation, not a union one," Laurent Berger, one of the most influential labour leaders in the country, said of the CGT initiative.

That not only highlighted the underlying divisions and turf battles for membership subscriptions that permanently plague the labour movement, but also more profound divergences between the Communist-rooted CGT and Berger's more reform-friendly CFDT.

Berger said his union had nothing to do with a day of street marches organised by the CGT on Thursday afternoon.

He said he did not share the CGT penchant for a "convergence of struggles" between rail workers, power sector employees, state hospital staff and even some students involved in very separate protests about university entry criteria.

While his union is backing the rail strike alongside the CGT and other unions, the CFDT is fighting Macron for concessions on debt cancellation and a new collective bargaining deal to cover rail workers when the SNCF reform ends its rail monopoly, and with it the protected job status of all future SNCF recruits.

The CGT opposes the principle of liberalisation and a pact under which all European Union governments have committed to start phasing out all passenger rail monopolies from 2020.

Forty-year-old Macron has stood firm and on Wednesday urged the unions to "stop holding the country hostage".

His government hopes union divisions will ultimately work in its favour, and the lower house of parliament this week approved the bill that enshrines most of the envisaged SNCF reforms.

Public support for the SNCF protest is weaker than for all but one of several dozen major protests over the last 20 years in France, according to an Ifop poll published last Sunday. It showed 42 per cent were sympathetic to the strikers.

That compared with much bigger support rates of two-thirds or so when strikes in late 1995 waged by rail workers snowballed into a broader public sector protest movement, forcing the government of the time to abandon rail and welfare reforms.

While polls suggest 60 per cent of the French want Macron to pursue his rail shake-up, he is walking on eggs after cutting wealth tax and housing aid and raising pensioner taxes. Those changes, the polls say, have cemented voter belief that Macron is bad for purchasing power and economic equality.

WEST PALM BEACH, United States — Donald Trump confirmed on Wednesday that his CIA chief took part in secret talks in North Korea, the most significant sign that an improbable summit between the US president and Kim Jong-un will go ahead.

News of the encounter between Kim and Mike Pompeo — Trump’s pick to be America’s next secretary of state — was the latest in a series of revelations from the US leader that have fuelled hopes of a major diplomatic breakthrough with Pyongyang.

“Mike Pompeo met with Kim Jong Un in North Korea last week. Meeting went very smoothly and a good relationship was formed,” Trump tweeted, capping the latest twist in a detente in the decades old nuclear standoff.

“Details of Summit are being worked out now,” added the president, who is hosting Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for two days of talks at his golf resort in Florida. 

Neither Trump nor the White House offered details of what was discussed and it remains unclear if there is enough potential for an agreement to have the Trump-Kim summit, slated for early June, go ahead.

Officials and outside experts say it is still not clear that Kim, who depends on the military to remain in power, is willing to give up nuclear weapons.

North Korean talk of “denuclearisation” — which Trump has embraced uncritically — has in the past been code for removing America’s military presence on the Korean peninsula, something long unthinkable in Washington.

“Denuclearisation will be a great thing for World, but also for North Korea!” Trump added in the tweet.

Nonetheless, the flurry of diplomatic activity has raised hopes for a pair of upcoming and potentially historic summits.

Kim is expected to meet South Korea’s President Moon Jae-In at a landmark meeting next Friday where discussion of a peace declaration is now on the cards.

Seoul’s push to formally declare an end to inter-Korean hostilities, which at the moment are subject only to an armistice, would have been unthinkable just months ago.

Trump earlier said that the summit could, with his “blessing”, explore a peace treaty to formally end the conflict.

“We are looking at the possibility of replacing the armistice regime on the Korean peninsula with a peace regime,” a senior official at South Korea’s presidential Blue House said on Wednesday.

“But this is not something we can do by ourselves. It needs close discussions with relevant parties, including North Korea.”

Still enemies 

The 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two sides technically at war. The Demilitarised Zone between them bristles with minefields and fortifications.

But reaching any final treaty would be fraught with complications.

“The peace treaty is a very difficult problem,” said Koo Kab-woo, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies.

While the US-led United Nations command, China and North Korea are signatories to the decades-old armistice, South Korea is not.

Both Pyongyang and Seoul claim sovereignty over the whole Korean peninsula, but a treaty could imply mutual recognition of each other.

Next week’s meeting will be just the third summit between the North and South since the armistice was signed 65 years ago. 

Key moments including Kim and Moon’s first handshake will be televised live, both sides agreed at working-level talks on Wednesday, Seoul said.

US summit by June 

Trump himself plans to hold a summit meeting with Kim within the next two months.

The pair have not spoken directly, the White House said, but the president revealed on Tuesday there had been contact at “very high levels” to prepare for the historic meeting — an apparent reference to Pompeo’s visit.

Trump also said that “five locations” were being considered for the summit.

“That will be taking place probably in early June or before that assuming things go well. It’s possible things won’t go well and we won’t have the meetings and we’ll just continue to go on this very strong path we have taken.”

US officials say that no decision has yet been made on a meeting venue, but China, North Korea, South Korea, and Panmunjom in the Demilitarised Zone between the two Koreas are seen as possible locations.

Beijing is North Korea’s sole major ally, an alliance dating back to the Korean War, but relations deteriorated after China supported UN sanctions to punish Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons program.

The sudden talk of rapprochement on the Korean Peninsula has also sparked a flurry of diplomatic activity with Pyongyang’s giant northern neighbour.

Last month, Kim made a surprise visit to Beijing to meet President Xi Jinping in what was believed to be his first trip outside his nation’s borders since he succeeded his father in 2011.

Senior Chinese officials have since travelled to Pyongyang amid mounting speculation Xi might make a reciprocal visit.

On Wednesday, reporters asked China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying about the reports of Pompeo’s visit to Pyongyang. 

“We welcome the direct contact and dialogue between the DPRK and the US,” Hua said, using the official acronym for North Korea. “But as the saying goes, a good start is half the battle.”

SINGAPORE - Some major customers of Boeing Co’s popular 737 jets including Korean Air Lines Co Ltd said on Wednesday they were inspecting engines of the type that blew apart mid-air on a fatal Southwest Airlines Co flight on Tuesday.

European regulators this month began requiring an inspection by early next year, and a person familiar with the matter said U.S. regulators were near a similar rule, which affects a number of 737s in operation globally.

Southwest Flight 1380 made an emergency landing in Philadelphia on Tuesday after an engine ripped apart mid-air, shattering a window on the 737 and nearly sucking a passenger through. One of 144 passengers died.

The actions by regulators show that there has been some concern, albeit non-urgent, about the engine, a workhorse of the global civil aviation fleet that has logged more than 350 million hours of safe travel but was also being examined after a 2016 accident.

The CFM56-7B engine type involved in the Southwest incident was produced by a joint venture of U.S. firm General Electric Co and France’s Safran SA called CFM International. It is one of the most common engines, paired with the world’s most-sold plane, the Boeing 737.

Southwest said it is speeding up inspections of all related engines out of extra caution, which it expects to complete within 30 days.

An early review of the failed Southwest engine found apparent metal fatigue where a fan blade had broken off, Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), told reporters on Tuesday.

“We are very concerned” about metal fatigue, Sumwalt said. “There needs to be proper inspection mechanisms in place to check for this before there’s a catastrophic event.”

Korean Air said on Wednesday it had not yet been prompted by its regulators for a check but it planned to inspect engines used on its entire 737 fleet by November following the Southwest incident.

About 20 percent to 30 percent of its 35 Boeing 737 jets use the same type of fan blade as the one on the Southwest jet, a Korean Air official said.

A Japan Airlines Co Ltd spokesman said two 737 jets in its fleet had engines with affected fan blades and inspections were due to be completed by the end of the day on Wednesday.

In August 2016, a Southwest flight made a safe emergency landing in Pensacola, Florida, after a fan blade separated from the same type of engine, and debris ripped a foot-long hole above the left wing. Investigators found signs of metal fatigue.

The 2016 incident prompted the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to propose ultrasonic inspections of similar fan blades and their replacement should they fail the test.

Sumwalt said the NTSB will review whether the engines involved in Tuesday’s incident might have been subject to the directive, which is not yet finalised.

The FAA proposal estimated that checks would require two hours of labor per inspection.

Not all airlines operating 737s are affected.

Australia’s Qantas Airways Ltd, a large 737 operator, said its engines were of a slightly different model than those targeted for inspection.

Spokespeople for several other major airlines operating 737s could not be reached immediately for comment.

STRASBOURG, France, — French President Emmanuel Macron warned on Tuesday that divisions between democracy and authoritarianism in Europe were becoming like a "civil war".

In a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg that set out his vision of a reformed EU, Macron called on the bloc to resist the siren song of populism.

The French leader's call to arms comes after eurosceptic populists won elections in Hungary and Italy, and as Brussels confronts Poland's right-wing government over the rule of law.

"There seems to be a sort of European civil war, where our differences and sometimes our national egotisms can seem more important than presenting a united face to the world," the 40-year-old president said.

"There is a fascination with the illiberal and it's growing all the time."

Macron's election victory last year against far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, and his ardent pro-Europeanism have made him the poster figure for those aiming for a revived post-Brexit EU to battle the challenges of populism.

Macron said he was concerned by the growing sense of "doubt" in several European countries in the wake of the shock 2016 Brexit vote, which he said was creating divisions in the EU.

"I don't want to belong to a generation of sleepwalkers, I don't want to belong to a generation that's forgotten its own past," he told MEPs in the eastern French city.

"I want to belong to a generation that will defend European sovereignty because we fought to obtain it. And I will not give in to any kind of fixation on authoritarianism," he added.

'France is back' 

His speech comes just days after Hungary's right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban won a crushing reelection victory. Orban regularly clashes with Brussels but is a "hero" for US President Donald Trump's former strategist Steve Bannon.

Macron's words were welcomed by European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker, who told parliament afterwards: "The true France is back."

The French president also launched into a spirited defence of his decision to launch air strikes alongside Britain and the United States against alleged regime chemical weapons sites in Syria.

"Three countries have intervened, and let me be quite frank, quite honest — this is for the honour of the international community," said Macron, who earlier this week said he had persuaded Donald Trump to keep US troops in Syria.

"These strikes don't necessarily resolve anything but I think they were important," he said.

In terms of his European reforms, Macron has struggled to win support across Europe for all his proposals. 

His speech to MEPs is part of a charm offensive ahead of European Parliament elections in May 2019, the first after Britain's scheduled departure from the EU.

Later this week, Macron will travel to Berlin for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to try to boost flagging support for his plans for the future of the eurozone.

Macron said that France was ready to increase its contribution to the EU's first post-Brexit multi-year budget, which begins in 2020.

 EU reforms 

But Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Party (CDU) pushed back on Monday against plans for deeper eurozone integration, including a separate eurozone budget and the expansion of the EU's bailout fund.

Any reforms have to be "in the European and in the German interest", CDU Secretary General Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told reporters.

Macron separately proposed on Tuesday to create a European fund for communities that take in refugees in a bid to tackle one of the most politically toxic issues facing the EU.

"I propose creating a European programme that directly financially supports local communities that welcome and integrate refugees," Macron said.

EU leaders are set to adopt preliminary Macron-backed plans for eurozone reforms and for an overhaul of its troubled asylum system in June, but there is still a lot of work to do.

Fighting to push through reforms at home in the face of mass rail strikes, Macron also faced difficulties in the European Parliament, where his domestic En Marche Party is not affiliated to any political group.

Merkel is due to address the European Parliament in November, officials said on Monday.

She made a joint speech with then-French president Francois Hollande in Strasbourg in 2015 in which they urged unity in the face of the migrant crisis.

SEOUL - South Korean security officials may visit North Korea to finalise details ahead for the first summit since 2007, where the South hopes the North will confirm a commitment to give up its nuclear programme, a South Korean official said on Tuesday.

After meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang in March, South Korea's national security adviser and spy chief said Kim was committed to denuclearising the Korean peninsula and had expressed a willingness to meet U.S. President Donald Trump.

The two sides are due to hold "working-level" talks on Wednesday and then South Korea's intelligence chief, Suh Hoon, or its national security adviser, Chung Eui-yong, could visit the North to finish off preparations, if deemed necessary, South Korean presidential chief of staff, Im Jong-seok, told reporters.

The April 27 summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Kim is scheduled to take place in the border village of Panmunjom.

That is expected to be followed by a meeting between Kim and Trump in late May or early June, which would mark the first meeting between sitting leaders of the two countries.

"Even though our special envoys confirmed his denuclearisation will, it is entirely different if the two leaders confirm it directly among themselves and put that into text," Im said.

"We expect the summit will confirm the denuclearisation will (of North Korea), and hope to have a comprehensive agreement with the North on the matter," he said.

Reclusive North Korea has been pursuing nuclear and missile programmes in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions. It conducted its most powerful nuclear test last year and has sought to develop a missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

But Kim has changed course since the beginning of the year, sending a delegation to the Winter Olympics held in South Korea in February and agreeing to discuss with South Korea and the United States a nuclear programmes the North has defended as a necessary deterrent against U.S. invasion.

The two Koreas are discussing the wording of a joint statement that could be released at the summit, Im said.

THREE-WAY SUMMIT?

Moon has been reviewing a framework of the statement which could be called the April 27 declaration or the Panmunjom declaration, he said.

The statement would likely focus on issues of denuclearisation and peace on the Korean peninsula, and an improvement in relations not only between the two Koreas but also with other countries including the United States.

"This summit is significant because it will set the stage for the North Korea-U.S. summit, and even a possible three-way summit between the countries," Im said.

"Without U.S. support and agreement, it will be difficult to follow through on inter-Korean agreements."

Any joint statement is unlikely to include economic cooperation with the North, Im said.

U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed since North Korea's first nuclear test in 2006 and strengthened over the past decade aim to cut North Korea off from international trade.

The two Koreas agreed last month to install a hotline for their leaders to help defuse military tension and facilitate consultation.

The telephone line could be operational by around Friday, but it is not clear when Moon and Kim would use it the first time, Im said.

The two leaders will meet at Peace House, a South Korean building inside Panmunjom, making Kim the first North Korean leader to set foot in the South since the 1950-53 Korean War.

Discussions are underway about live coverage of part of the meeting, Im said.

North Korea and the rich, democratic South are technically still at war because the Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. The United States stations 28,500 troops in South Korea as a legacy of the conflict.

YEREVAN — Several thousand protesters staged rallies on Monday in the Armenian capital against former president Serzh Sarkisian as he moved to maintain a chokehold on power as prime minister.

Demonstrators marched through the centre of the capital Yerevan and blocked streets in opposition to a change of government that would see Sarkisian maintain huge influence under a new parliamentary system of government.

Some protesters chanted "Armenia without Serzh".

"Our goal right now is to prevent Serzh Sarkisian from becoming the country's leader for a third time without violence and the use of force," said opposition leader Nikol Pashinian who led the protesters.

Sarkisian, 63, ended his second and final presidential term last week.

On Monday, the ruling Republican Party and the government-friendly Dashnaktsutyun Party formally nominated Sarkisian as candidate for the post of prime minister despite the protests.

The pro-Moscow politician is expected to be elected by parliament on Tuesday.

The protesters took to the streets after opposition leader Pashinian called on Armenians to stage rallies to prevent Sarkisian's political transition. 

Several hundred people sat or laid down on pavements on Monday, blocking roads leading to the parliament building and universities. 

Some built barricades using cast-iron benches and metal trash cans.

Authorities beefed up police presence and put in place cordons which some protesters broke through. Police urged protesters not to violate public order.

"Such actions can lead to crimes against the citizens' life, health and property," police said in a statement.

Rallies began on Friday when more than 4,000 people took part.

A shrewd former military officer, Sarkisian has been in charge of the landlocked South Caucasus nation of 2.9 million since winning a presidential vote in 2008.

The country's new figurehead president, Armen Sarkisian, was sworn in last week but his powers will be weaker under a new parliamentary system of government.

The two men are not related.

Opposition politicians say the shift to a parliamentary republic with a powerful prime minister has been designed to increase Serzh Sarkisian's grip on power in the impoverished Moscow-allied country.

Tensions in Armenia often flare up during presidential and parliamentary elections.

After Sarkisian was first elected president in February 2008, 10 people died in bloody clashes between police and supporters of the defeated opposition candidate.

YANGON — Myanmar’s government said it has repatriated the first family of Rohingya refugees, among the 700,000 who fled a brutal crackdown, but the move was slammed by rights groups as a publicity stunt which ignored warnings over the security of returnees.

The stateless Muslim minority has been massing in squalid refugee camps in Bangladesh since the Myanmar army launched a ruthless campaign against the community in northern Rakhine state last August.

The United Nations says the operation amounts to ethnic cleansing, but Myanmar has denied the charge, saying its troops targeted Rohingya militants.

Bangladesh and Myanmar vowed to begin repatriation in January but the plan has been repeatedly delayed as both sides blame the other for lack of preparation.

According to a Myanmar government statement posted late Saturday, one family of refugees became the first to be processed in newly-built reception centres earlier in the day.

“The five members of a family... came back to Taungpyoletwei town repatriation camp in Rakhine state this morning,” said a statement posted on the Information Committee’s Facebook page.

Bangladesh’s refugee commissioner, Mohammad Abul Kalam, told AFP that the Rohingya family had been living in a camp erected on a patch of “no man’s land” between the two countries, meaning Dhaka had no formal role in their return. Several thousand Rohingya have been living in the zone since August, crammed into a cluster of tents beyond a barbed-wire fence that roughly demarcates the border.

The rest of the refugees have settled in sprawling camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district.

“The reality is that the repatriation has not started yet,” Bangladesh’s Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told AFP on Sunday, adding that the single family’s return was “not a meaningful act”.

“We don’t know when [repatriation] will start. They have not been able to create a ground for trust that they will take back these people,” he added.

According to the Myanmar statement, immigration authorities provided the family with national verification cards, a form of identification (ID) that falls short of citizenship and has been rejected by many Rohingya leaders who want full rights before they return.

Photos posted by the government showed one man, two women, a young girl and a boy receiving the ID cards and getting health checks.

It said that the family had been sent to stay “temporarily” with relatives in Rakhine state’s Maungdaw town after “finishing the repatriation process”.

Myanmar officials could not be reached for more details.

The Facebook post did not mention plans for further returnees expected in the near future.

‘PR exercise’ 

The move comes amid warnings from the UN and other rights groups that repatriation of Rohingya would be premature, as Myanmar has yet to address the systematic legal discrimination and persecution the minority has faced for decades.

The Rohingya are reviled by many in the Buddhist-majority country, where they are branded as illegal “Bengali” immigrants from Bangladesh, despite their deep roots in Rakhine state.

They have been targeted by waves of violence, systematically stripped of their citizenship and forced to live in apartheid-like conditions with severely restricted access to healthcare, education and other basic services.

The repatriation announcement is “a public relations exercise in an attempt to deflect attention from the need for accountability for crimes committed in Rakhine state”, said Andrea Giorgetta from the International Federation for Human Rights.

“Before proceeding with the repatriation of Rohingya, the Myanmar government must recognise and guarantee all their fundamental human rights,” he told AFP.

The UN maintains that much work needs to be done on the Myanmar side before returns can be safe and dignified.

On Friday, the UN’s refugee agency said it had finalised a repatriation framework with Bangladesh, but was still negotiating an agreement with Myanmar.

“Conditions in Myanmar are not yet conducive for returns to be safe, dignified and sustainable,” the UNHCR said.

Many Rohingya refugees express fear of returning to a country where they saw their relatives murdered by soldiers and Buddhist vigilantes who drove them from their homes with bullets and arson.

Doctors Without Borders says the violence claimed at least 6,700 Rohingya lives in the first month alone.

Myanmar authorities have since bulldozed many of the burned villages, raising alarm from rights groups who say they are erasing evidence of atrocities and obscuring the Rohingya’s ties to the country. 

SOWETO, South Africa — South Africans turned out in thousands to bid final goodbyes to anti-apartheid icon and Nelson Mandela's former wife Winnie Mandela who was being laid to rest with full state honours on Saturday.

Mourners filled the 37,500-seater Orlando Stadium in the township of Soweto where Winnie lived and erupted into loud cheers as the casket carrying her remains was wheeled in.

The casket draped with the multi-coloured South African flag was placed in the middle of the 37,500-seater stadium in front of a stage, decked in white and yellow flowers.

Mourners dressed in the colours of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), as well those of the radical opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), sang "there's no-one like Winnie", an adapted popular liberation struggle song. 

In a moving, yet fiery eulogy, her daughter slammed her mother's critics. 

"It was my mother who kept his [Nelson Mandela's] memory alive," said a teary Zenani. "South Africa, and indeed the world, holds men and women to different standards of morality." 

South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa, who took office two months ago, offered an apology for the country's failure to honour Winnie for her contribution to the liberation of the country.

"I'm sorry Mama that your organisation [ANC] delayed in according you its honour. I'm sorry that we delayed this much, to this point," he said in an eulogy.

Firebrand opposition politician Julius Malema, who was expelled from the ANC, but who remained close to Winnie, said "she died a revolutionary... she never sold out". As soon as speeches drew to a close, stormy clouds formed over the stadium, followed moments after by heavy rains that drenched mourners and the funeral procession as it drove out to a cemetery 40 kilometres away.

Mourners broke into another liberation song chanting in Xhosa: "this is the Winnie we know".

The ceremony concluded 10 days of national mourning during which time hundreds of thousands of South Africans have paid tribute to the "Mother of the Nation" at her Soweto home and elsewhere.

Winnie Mandela, who died in Johannesburg aged 81 on April 2 after a long illness, has been celebrated for helping keep Nelson Mandela's dream of a non-racial South Africa alive while he was behind bars for 27 years.
"She was one of the most profound leaders of the ANC," said 53-year-old mourner Brian Magqaza. "She fought from beginning to the end. Go well Mama."

Foreign dignitaries at the funeral include the leaders of Namibia, Swaziland and the Republic of Congo, as well as American civil rights activist Jesse Jackson and international supermodel Naomi Campbell. 

LONDON, United Kingdom — The world's chemical arms watchdog on Thursday said it had confirmed Britain's findings that a nerve agent used in an attack on a former spy and his daughter in England last month originally came from Russia.

Samples tested by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) "confirm the findings of the United Kingdom relating to the identity of the toxic chemical", according to a summary of the Hague-based group's report released in London.

It added that "the toxic chemical was of high purity".

In a declassified summary of its findings, however, the OPCW did not make any assessment on who carried out the March 4 attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English city of Salisbury that also injured a police officer.

Britain and allies, including the United States, have blamed Moscow, sparking furious denials and provoking an international row resulting in the expulsions of diplomats from all sides.

The OPCW did not name the chemical, saying that information and its structure would be in a full classified report available to signatory states of the organisation.

Britain named it as Novichok, a group of powerful and deadly chemical compounds reportedly developed by the Soviet government in the 1970s and 1980s.

Prime Minister Theresa May's government has said Russia was known to have used it, and pointed to the country's pattern of "reckless behaviour", including the annexation of Crimea.

Russia has strongly denied any involvement, and insists it has destroyed all of its chemical weapons.

Skripal moved to Britain in a spy swap in 2010 and settled in Salisbury, and his daughter Yulia was visiting from Russia when they were poisoned, possibly on his front door.

Despite initial fears that they would not survive, Yulia Skripal was released from hospital to an undisclosed location earlier this week, while her father is said to be improving rapidly.

Sydney- A high-profile Australian author and Muslim activist was refused entry to the United States Thursday and put on a plane home after arriving for a speaking engagement, sparking calls for a re-think by border officials.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied, an advocate for youth, women and those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, said she was stopped at immigration and ordered out of the country.

"Roughly three hours since touch down in Minneapolis, I'm on a plane back," she tweeted.

"Well, guess that tightening of immigration laws business is working, despite my Australian passport. We're taking off now."

A statement by US Customs and Border Protection, cited by Australian media, said she did not have the right visa.

Abdel-Magied was due to appear in New York to discuss online hate against Muslims and the difficulties of being a young Muslim woman in Western countries at a forum organised by PEN International, a freedom of expression organisation.

PEN America chief Suzanne Nossel said she was dismayed by the decision and understood it was the same type of visa used previously for similar trips without issue.

She said the purpose of the PEN World Voices Festival, founded after the 9/11 attacks, was to sustain links between the US and the wider world.

This, she said, was being jeopardised "by efforts at visa bans and tightened immigration restrictions" which threatened "to choke off vital channels of dialogue that are protected under the First Amendment right to receive and impart information through in-person cultural exchange".

"We call on Customs and Border to admit her to the US so that she can take her rightful place in the urgent international conversation to take place at the festival next week."

Adbel-Magied, 27, said authorities seized her phone and passport before putting her on a plane out.

"Those who say the world is borderless are those who have the right colour passports -- or birthplace," she tweeted.

Abdel-Magied, a former Queensland state Young Australian of the Year and mechanical engineer, was born in Sudan but migrated to Australia in 1992. She moved to London last year.

She has worked as a presenter for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and formerly served on the government's Council for Australian-Arab Relations.

She sparked an outcry in Australia over an Anzac Day social media post which referred to current global conflicts and the plight of asylum-seekers detained by Australia in offshore camps.

Anzac Day annually marks the ill-fated 1915 landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps in modern-day Turkey during World War I.

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs said it was aware she had been denied entry.

"Like Australia, the United States administers a strict entry regime. The decision on who can enter the United States is a matter solely for the US government," it added.

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